Untamed

Last Update: December 2, 2011

The chains are off and the traps are sprung as something new and “untamed” is set to tear through the backwoods of Canobie Lake Park, in the form of a grizzly themed Euro-Fighter roller coaster called Untamed. Announced back in late October 2010, Untamed is the first new coaster to set foot upon Canobie Lake since the 1987 Canobie Corkscrew, and the first coaster added to the park in 20 years, when the pint-sized Dragon Coaster was relocated to the park from Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park (1991). It is the third steel coaster at the park and brings the parks current coaster count up to four, alongside the Canobie Corkscrew, Dragon Coaster, and the classic wooden Herbert Schmeck/PTC Yankee Cannonball. This means that Canobie Lake will now match its closest competitor, Lake Compounce, in the number of coasters they have.

The coaster, located near the parks classic wooden coaster Yankee Cannonball, is meant as a replacement for the recently departed Galaxi roller coaster, Rockin’ Rider, which was removed in 2004. Chris Nicoli, Canobie Lake Park’s Marketing Manager said of the ride, “Our new coaster will certainly live up to its name, deliviering an exciting mix of thrill elements…complementing our classic Yankee Cannonball and Corkscrew coasters.” In fact, the park has been doing much over the past 10 years to try and bring in new and thrilling attractions to keep the classic park up-to-date. In 2002, the park added an S&S Power Double Shot tower ride, “Starblaster,” followed the next year with a Chair-O-Planes-type ride, and Wipeout in2004. The park then added a HUSS Firsbee ride called Xtreme Frisbee in 2007, giving the park an excellent mix of old and new rides, but the coasters still remained “old.” Untamed has change that, however, for 2011.

Opening up along with Dare Devil Dive at Six Flags Over Georgia in 2011, the coaster was one of only four Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter coasters located in the US upon its opening, with the others being Mystery Mine at Dollywood and SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge at Nickelodeon Universe. The ride features a Grizzly Bear theme, with bear-themed cars and supports made to look like birch trees, the ride twists, turns, flips, and dives through the trees of an Adirondack forest. The coasters station and surrounding shop(s) carry over the theme with a “rustic log construction” set to complete the Adirondack theming. Originally, the name “Bear Hunt” was also under consideration, but Untamed won, reportedly by a landslide.

The ride itself is a clone of the Euro-Fighter 320+ model, utilized previously at Adventure Island in the form of Rage, and at Duinrell as Falcon. Turning 90° to the right out of the station, the bear claws its way up vertically to the top of the 72-foot tall lift structure. The bear is then released in all of its “untamed” glory, diving over the top and curving back under itself during the 97° descent towards the forest floor below. The first trap is sprung at 44 mph as the cars rocket up and through a vertical loop before rising up to tree-height and blasting through a tall, overbanked U-turn. Now tearing back through the forest in the opposite direction, the grizzly rears its ugly head as it rises back up and twists tightly around to the left. The coaster then springs another bear trap, and brave riders are forced to hold on for dear life as they are slowly rolled through a barrel roll over the track from whence they just came. Rolling out of the slow roll, the cars then drop back down to the right in-line with the break run, but there’s one more trick up its sleeve. The ride finishes with a tight lefthand, upward spiral that drops riders down onto a downward-sloping brake run, providing a nice pop of airtime following the G-inducing spiral, and ending the 1184-foot long romp through the Adirondack woods of Grizzly territory.

At the time of its opening in the early summer of 2011, the ride was one of the steepest roller coasters in the Northeastern United States, as well as one of the steepest in the entire United States.